Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is coming under pressure over his tricky balancing act regarding Israel, with an increasingly popular and vocal opponent calling for the closing of a NATO defense system allegedly used to support the Jewish State.

Islamist politician Fatih Erbakan this week added his voice to those demanding the shutdown of the Kurecik radar installation. Erdogan has denied that Israel has access to intelligence from the southern Turkey facility, which can detect the firing of missiles from the region, including from Iran, in order to alert European defense systems.

“Kurecik is a NATO base and intelligence shared with the U.S. and the U.K. is directly used to protect Israel,” said Erbakan, 44, who shot to prominence after abandoning an alliance with Erdogan’s AK Party to record the third-best result in March local elections. “This base must be closed,” he said in an interview in Ankara.

The call by Erbakan, the son of Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, the late Erdogan mentor Necmettin Erbakan, is the latest challenge for the president as he strives to balance Turkey’s membership of the NATO Western alliance with opposition to Israel from his religious base.

Erbakan’s role in Turkish politics is much greater than the size of his party: His recent rise demonstrates the appeal of a popular Islamist — and anti-Israel — movement that could derail Erdogan’s goal to extend his already record two-decade rule.

Erdogan has previously said he’d be prepared to shut down Kurecik amid a dispute with the U.S. over the acquisition of Russian air defenses, but he is very unlikely to do so now. Such a move would severely strain ties with U.S.-led NATO allies that support Israel.

At the same time, Turkey on Thursday confirmed that it would halt all trade with Israel until that country allows uninterrupted and sufficient flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza, after two officials familiar with the matter said the pause went into effect earlier in the day.

The president dismissed allegations that the Israeli military might have access to information obtained by the radar installation, which Iran has threatened to target in the event of a war with the Jewish state. It’s not known whether the facility played a part in Israel’s largely successful defense of about 300 drones and missiles launched last month from the Islamist Republic.

“The radar center in Kurecik does not and can’t have any relationship, bond or contact with any state other than the security of our country and our alliance,” Erdogan said April 26, adding that Islam does not tolerate “disseminating lies.”

Fluctuating relations

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